In the absence of HAGS news, hypersexual West Coast competitor [italic]Hi Felicia[/italic] has begun transitioning to "sleek-and-sexy wine bar."

[quote]It was hailed as a culturally momentous, radically inclusive restaurant run by a young Black queer woman determined to upend the norms of fine dining. When Parker Kim heard about Hi Felicia in Oakland, they knew they wanted to work there.

[quote]A young transgender cook of color, Kim said Hi Felicia, which opened at 326 23rd St. last April, was the first restaurant where they didn’t feel tokenized or othered. They saw their own dreams in Hi Felicia’s 26-year-old owner, Imana, who uses just her first name. The staff, almost entirely people of color and many queer-identifying, wore crop tops and blasted music while serving a $195 tasting menu to diners clamoring to experience Imana’s much-celebrated vision of “vulgar” fine dining.

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[quote]Imana has become a very public — and somewhat polarizing — figure in the Bay Area dining industry, known for sharing vulnerable Instagram posts about her mental health next to videos of scantily clad pole dancers performing at Sluts, her San Francisco wine bar. She drew attention last year when she left a San Francisco restaurant without paying her bill, later saying it was an accident. Seven Bay Area restaurants and bars have decided to ban her, owners and employees confirmed to The Chronicle. When asked about false rumors circulating that she had staged the burglary of Hi Felicia herself, she told The Chronicle: “Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn’t just do a break-in. I would have actually committed arson.”

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[quote]Dawn said Imana made frequent comments about their body, genitals and her attraction to them. (Imana denied commenting on their genitalia.) Imana grabbed their butt at work multiple times, Dawn said. Dawn said they would either tell Imana to stop or ignore the behavior. Quin Kirwan, Hi Felicia’s former general manager, confirmed Dawn reported the alleged behavior at the time.

[quote]Imana said Hi Felicia employees never told her that she made them feel uncomfortable, nor did she receive any complaints about alleged sexual harassment and no complaints with government agencies are known to have been filed. She said she touched some employees, but some employees also touched her and made comments about her body. She never thought it crossed a line: “There was consent because we were all best friends.”

[quote]“Any way you slice it there was an insane amount of inappropriateness, and it was the allure to dining at Hi Felicia,” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “It was vulgar fine dining.”

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[quote]Nine former staffers said they felt Imana created a hyper-sexual work environment. Parker Story, Hi Felicia’s former wine director, said Imana once arrived shortly before the restaurant opened and announced to staff that she had been masturbating for several hours.

[quote]The culture at Hi Felicia was “super sexual,” Imana acknowledged, without the typical separation between boss and employee. She knew about employees’ sex lives and they knew about hers, she said. She said some workers saw her naked, and vice versa. But she said she doesn’t feel solely responsible for cultivating that environment.

[quote]“How could I alone create that? The team and I built the restaurant together,” she said.

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[quote]The line between personal and professional relationships in her pop-up was murky from the start, Imana acknowledged. Her home was her employees’ workplace. They would go out drinking together after serving rabbit mole to diners sitting at mismatched tables covered with bed sheets from Goodwill, said Kirwan, who started the supper club with Imana.

[quote]At one point, the cost to dine at the apartment was $225 per person, which bought a seven-course tasting menu with dishes like cashew queso and lamb enchiladas. But the supper club regularly served basic grocery store ingredients, including precooked rotisserie chickens, tortilla chips and pre-chopped vegetables, according to Kirwan and Dawn.